LA Packs The House For Science

I went to the Los Angeles Book Festival this weekend and was very impressed. Bibliophiles swarmed over the UCLA campus like literary army ants, and it seemed like every event of the day was packed. That included the panel discussion I was in, about science. My co-panelists were Avery Gilbert, a fellow finalist for the LA Times Science Book Prize, and Leonard Susskind, who won for his book on black holes. KC Cole, our moderator, managed to keep this herd of cats on the straight and narrow by having each of us answer her questions about science in general with our own particular examples from out books on black holes, the sense of smell, and E. coli. The questions from the audience were fabulous. One person got up and said she had a two-part question. She wanted me to talk about the long-term evolution experiments Richard Lenski runs with E. coli, and she wanted Susskind to talk about whether the anthropic principle and the multiverse theory were compatible. One person. Incidentally, I answered first, prefacing my remarks by saying I think I got the easier question. When I was done, Susskind looked at me and said, "No, I got the easier question. Yes." You can read more about the event over at the LA Times book blog, but you won't read much about multiverse theories or evolution experiments, or much of anything of substance, I'm afraid. Plus, I'm pretty sure no one's ever called me a curmudgeon.